Prince Harry and other claimants face massive legal bill

The Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry, along with other well-known figures, including Sir Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley, are facing a massive legal bill of millions of pounds. This comes after they lost a privacy lawsuit they filed against the publisher of the 'Daily Mail' newspaper in the High Court in the UK.

The lawsuit, filed against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), dealt with allegations of unlawful information gathering. Earlier this month, all the plaintiffs' claims were dismissed by Mr. Justice Nicklin after a trial that lasted 11 weeks. On Wednesday, a two-day hearing began in the High Court to determine the allocation of the massive legal costs of the trial.

In documents submitted to the court, the lawyers for the Duke of Sussex and the other plaintiffs described the publisher's costs, which reached approximately 34.5 million pounds as of July 9, as 'staggering'. They argued that ANL exceeded the approved costs by more than 18.6 million pounds, and added that the group is insured to cover part of the publisher's expenses in the amount of 16.2 million pounds.

The total amount the plaintiffs will be required to pay has not yet been determined, but the court was told that 'the current level of cover will not be sufficient to meet their total exposure to costs, potentially in the sum of many millions of pounds'. ANL argues that the plaintiffs should pay the full costs incurred by it, and requested that the payment be made on an indemnity basis, which grants higher financial compensation.

The publisher argued that the plaintiffs' conduct during the trial was unreasonable, a conduct clause that could trigger indemnity coverage. ANL's lawyers noted:

'When claims include wide-ranging allegations of dishonesty and serious criminal conduct against specific individuals, a focused, responsible and proportionate approach is required as the norm. The conduct of the claimants in this case has ignored these key principles entirely'.

On the other hand, the plaintiffs' lawyers argued that they acted 'honestly and in good faith', and that an outcome where they would be forced to pay the full costs would be 'unjustified'. They added that this would 'severely prejudice the claimants who will be personally liable' to cover costs beyond their insurance, and that they approached the case 'in good faith, under the burden of decades of intense and intrusive media scrutiny of their private lives'.